The Cultural Cold War

...But the most enduring projects were the magazines: Encounter, Der Monat, Preuves, and similar journals in Italy, South America, and Africa that combined cultural and political themes...

...Frances Stonor Saunders is among those who think American conduct was as bad in kind, if not in degree, as the Soviets...

...It would read: "Except for the Cold War...

...N A Great General and Not a Bad President Either Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph OverAdversity 1822-1865 Brooks D. Simpson Houghton-Mifflin /533 pages /$35 President Grant Reconsidered Fran...

...Sulking Above the Fray The Cultural Cold War: The ClA and the World of Arts and Letters Frances Stonor Saunders New Press/509 pages / $z9.95 REVIE~ED BY Arch Puddington ~ t is by now clear that an amendment must be added to the adage that history is written by the winners...

...Army...

...T he Congress for Cultural Freedom grew out of American government apprehension over Communist influence in European intellectual circles after World War II...

...Even worse, in committing ourselves to the "long, twilight struggle" against the Communist threat, we increasingly came to resemble the totalitarian monster we opposed...

...neither the apologists for the Soviets nor the outraged Red Haters...

...In America, meanwhile, liberal anti-Communism collapsed almost entirely over Vietnam...

...Critics have always made much of Grant's supposedly mediocre record at the military academy (twenty-first in a class of 39 cadets in the class of 1843 ) . Few note that the class started with 77 members and that academically Grant excelled in mathematics and horsemanship...

...The culture war was no rogue CIA operation...

...As C.D...

...It was Jesse's idea that Ulysses attend West Point, and his son offered no objection...

...Furthermore, some Cold War planners had come to believe that the development of the atomic bomb had actually diminished the role of the military in the struggle against Moscow as a "balance of terror" rendered a shooting war highly unlikely...

...The congressman who appointed him dropped the cadet's given first name and substituted his mother's maiden name of Simpson as a middle name...

...Certainly Saunders lets us know that during the editorship of Irving Kristol, Encounter adopted a course that was often independent of both the CCF and the CIA...

...A British documentary film maker, Saunders adopts an arch, condescending tone toward the men who made the struggle against Communism their life's cause...

...Among those inspired by their example was Ronald Reagan, who began his political career making commercials for the Crusade for Freedom and went on to lead the most ideologically antiCommunist administrations in the postwar period...

...This was transparently untrue, and Saunders devotes page after page to proving the obvious point that operatives from the International Organization Division were involved in various decisions, especially staffing...

...y et even here, the evidence suggests that the relationship between the CCF and the American governruent was that of collaborators who shared the same goals, ideas, and methods of operation, rather than that of a government operative, giving directions to a supplicant...

...Jackson, an early advocate of psychological war (and a man treated by Saunders as a buffoon) declared, the goal was "winning World War III without having to fight it...

...More often than not, the big foundations would comply...

...When the truth about CIA fnnding finally emerged, the official line was that the agency had simply provided the money to make possible the CCF's good works but had taken a hands-off policy toward the operation of its various assets...

...by ~972 a number of the CCF's charter members were supporting George McGovern and urging disengagement from the struggle against global Conmnunist influence...

...American and British intelligence were largely responsible for publication of The God That Failed, and the CIA sponsored a book distribution effort that included the works of Koestler, Orwell, Silone, and Djilas...

...Perhaps this weakness, along with his love of horses and long rides far from home, is what convinced his father Jesse, a successful leather tanner, that his eldest son was better suited for the army...

...Now come two books that might start Grant on the road to receiving his historical due...

...He even established an institution, the National Endowment for Democracy, which extended the cultural war to the very heartland of Communism, and did so openly rather than through covert intelligence channels...

...The goal was to encourage a political consensus in which democratic socialists rejected the lure of Marxism just as emphatically as did Christian Democrats...

...Men like Kennan were convinced that the Cold War was at heart a political rather than military struggle, and were apprehensive about the European intellectual class's response to the Communist challenge...

...The CIA did whatever was deemed prudent to support those in the British Labour Party grouped around Hugh Gaitskill and moderate German Social Democrats like the The American Spectator _9 Ju n e ~ o o o 71 young Willy Brandt, then in his pre-Ostpolitik phase...

...Saunders has made good use of archival material unavailable until recently, and has uncovered such nuggets as the CIA's involvement in rewriting the ending of the film version of George Orwell's Animal Farm to make the antiCommunist message more vivid...

...their staffs included veterans of World War II intelligence and the early CIA and, more to the point, the foundations were in agreement with the CIA on American Cold War objectives and saw nothing wrong in working closely with those in government who were promoting the anti-Communist cause...

...Aside from the books and journals, the most enduring legacy of the cultural Cold War was the example of anti-totalitarian 72 Ju~e 2 o o o . The American Spectator struggle embodied in the lives of the Congress for Cultural Freedom's leading pe> sonalities...

...This concern initially manifested itself in the organized opposition, spearheaded principally by Sidney Hook, to the cultural conference organized by fellow travelers at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New ~fbrk in 1948...

...These, then, were the bad old days, when America's great foundations gave millions of dollars to sustain a cultural offensive against Communism instead of against the United States, as is the case today...

...She calls Arthur Koestler a "modern-clay Robespierre...

...Born Hiram Ulysses but known by his middle name, he had to struggle in his youth against the nickname "Useless...

...We here in London Iwhere Encounter was located] are not morons," Kristol wrote in a not untypical letter of complaint, "and I sincerely believe we can better judge the situation than you can in Paris...

...modern art that the American government had openly sponsored for a European audience...

...Her subject is the campaign waged by the United States, principally through the Congress for Cultural Freedom, to counter pro-Soviet or neutralist sentiments among the intellectual classes in Europe and the developing world...

...The proAmerican wing of the British Labour Party was relegated to the margins, replaced by anti-nuclear activists and the hard left from the trade union movement...

...Barnes A compelling story, one would think...

...Ever practical, Grant thought results more important than appearances...

...There were former Communists, like Koestler and Ignazio Silone, along with figures of a more social democratic orientation: Raymond Aron, Frangois Bondy, Denis de Rougement, Stephen Spender...

...Geoffrey PerT he rise of Ulysses S. Grant is a tale Horatio Alger would have found incredible...

...But to many scholars, America did not so much win the Cold War but survive it, emerging from its struggle against Communism a deeply scarred country...

...The death of Communism, the Soviet Union's disintegration, the rejection of socialism and embrace of market economics, the spread of flee institutions- here, one would think, is powerful evidence of a clear-cut American triumph, made all the more impressive because it did not involve armed conflict with Moscow...

...In letters to the CCF's director, Michael Josselson, Kristol insisted on a near absolute degree of editorial independence...

...The motives were varied--certainly American policymakers felt an urgency to show Europe that modern art flourished in "conformist" America and that racial diversig~ prevailed in the arts despite official segregation in the South...

...In seven, he would be elected president...

...Being known as "U.S...

...Unfortunately, The Cultural Cold War is equal parts scholarship and political bias-the latter of which Saunders flaunts at every opportunity...

...The agency established several dummy foundations through which government fimds passed directly to the CCF and other cultural entities...

...Our cultural elites sneered at Reagan when he condemned Communism to history's ashbin, much as they had snickered at Sidney Hook for his relentless attacks on the Communist idea...

...When journalists began asking pointed questions about funding sources in the late ]96o's, the entire edifice fell apart rather quickly, producing much embarrassment among the intellectuals involved in the project...

...But there was another factor at work...

...Grant acquired the name we know him by thanks to an error...

...Grant quickly gave up trying to correct the error...

...In addition to introducing millions of readers to the classics of the literature of freedom, the CIA was promoting abstract expressionism, showcasing Leontyne Price and other black artists, and assisting democratically minded journalists in Africa...

...Among the Americans, a few had moved into the conservative camp-James Burnham and Max Eastman most notably...

...In the early years, the Congress sponsored numerous trans-Atlantic conferences and published declarations signed by leading intellectuals about freedom of expression...

...These journals provided a voice for a generation of democratic, anti totalitarian writers, and in the developing world, ensured that there was at least one competing voice to what was often an overwhelmingly Marxist or rabidly reactiona D' intellectual environment...

...She refers to the architects of America's early Cold War policies as "Park Avenue cowboys," "mandarins," "paladins of democracy...

...She likens the Americans who masterminded the early Cold War strategy to Oliver North--both, she asserts, were dangerous fanatics...

...Odd then, that Grant has had such difficulty, attracting a first-rate biographer...

...To subsidize its far-flung empire, the CIA used both direct and indirect routes...

...Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph Over Adversity 1822-1865, the first of a projected two-volume treatment, is a well-written, engaging biography of a man who started out least likely to succeed and ended up saving the Union...

...A certain amount of deceit was involved in the arrangement, as the CCF, along with Radio Free Europe and other CIA cultural assets, consistently denied receiving funds from the American government...

...This is an intriguing story, involving a number of the world's most respected thinkers and writers, the American foreign policy elite, and the Central Intelligence Agency...

...The main pillar of America's cultural Cold War was the non-Communist left outside the United States, especially in Western Europe...

...56.95 (paper) REVIEWED BY JohnA...

...But most of the early participants were Cold War liberals: Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Mar), McCarthy, Dwight Macdonald...

...And she concludes her account with a roster of early Cold Warriors who committed suicide or died in spiritual turmoil, the message being that anti-Communism involved a form of mental illness...

...His standing was lowered by poor grades in French (the grim reaper ofpre-Civil War West Point) and a remarkable number of demerits for poor marching (he was tone deaf) and failing to observe military punctilio...

...Even if the truth had not emerged when it did, the effort to sustain a non-Communist left was to prove a massive failure...

...Finally, Allen Dulles and other highranking government officials convinced the leaders of Ford, Rockefeller, and other foundation giants to enlist in the culture war by funding the CCF and other favored projects...

...Early on he demonstrafed he had little head for business, foolishly telling a man in a horse trade what his top price would be before the transaction was completed...

...Prize...

...Scaturro Madison Books ~37 pages / $34.50...

...Grant-United States, Uncle Sam, and later, Unconditional Surrender-beat being known as "H.U.G...

...Reagan instinctively understood that Communism was vulnerable to a cultural offensive based on the idea of democratic freedoms...

...was published, the CIA provided much of the money for the conferences and journals sponsored by the CCF, and influenced the organization's direction through its role in approving the appointment of key staff members...

...William McFeely's 1981 Grant: A Biography is the historical equivalent of a Clintonian smear job, repeating all the old canards (drunk, butcher), while adding some new ones (perjurer, racist...

...JOHN A. BARNES, a corporate communications manager for Pfizer Inc., is writing the forthcoming Ulysses S. Grant on Leadership: Executive Lessons from the Front Lines (Prima Publishing...

...Although Saunders concentrates on the relationship between the Congress and the intelligence world, her account makes clear that the decision to put American support behind a cultural counter-offensive was widely shared by the elites who set the country's foreign policy tone at the time, including such figures as Ceorge F. Kennan, Averell Harriman, and Dean Acheson...

...Needless to say, this effort won its author a Pulitzer...

...Although a few of the intellectuals drawn to the CCF were of a conservative bent, most came from the left...

...Because the author's contempt for the American Cold War project suffuses the book, the reader must summon up unusual powers of attention to get at the core of the narrative...

...To be sure, having gotten the CCF and other institutions up and running, the CIA should have unburdened itself of its cultural assets and concentrated on the nuts and bolts of intelligence...

...Given the impact of McCarthyism, Cold War planners reasoned that a policy of open support for modern artists, German social democrats, former Communists, and other suspect types might draw the fury of the witch hunters whose influence over American life, though often exaggerated (not least by Saunders), was not negligible...

...Like Frances Stonor Saunders, the elites have never forgiven the anti-Communists for being right...

...Like others on the left, she regards America during the 195o's as a fear-ridden, conformist land whose culture was dominated by McCarthyite know-nothings...

...Her preference is for those who took a plague on both houses approach, quoting Arthur Miller favorably that "neither side was wholly right...

...In the wake of Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik, the German Social Democrats veered towards neutralism...

...ret's 1997 Grant: Soldier and Presidev~t is an improvement in that Perret endeavors to right some of McFeely's wrongs, but he delves no more deeply than the published sources, and the work is littered with errors to boot...

...Brooks D. Simpson, a history professor at Arizona State University, is the author of a previous excellent book on Grant, Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Polities of War and Reconstruction 186>1868, which made the case for Grant's political acumen...

...In April 1861, Grant was a 39-year-old failure, burdened with a reputation for drinking and supporting a wife and four children on what he could earn working under his younger brother in his father's leather goods store in the one-horse town of Galena, Illinois...

...His roommate senior year was Frederick Dent, son of a well-off slaveholding family from Missouri, and Grant married Dent's sister, Julia, after a tumultuous The American Spectator _9 June 2 o o o 73...

...There is, in fact, an important story here, though not always the story which the author wants to tell us...

...Less than three years later, he would be the first man since George Washington to hold the permanent rank of lieutenant general in the U.S...

...The agency also made arrangements with legitimate foundations, such as the one operated by Houston's Hobby family, to launder funds meant for various cultural enterprises...

...Adversity" indeed seemed to be the one constant in Grant's life...

...The CIA was also involved in book publishing and distribution...

...As was known well before The Cultural Cold War ARCH PUDDINGTON is vice president for research at Freedom House and author of the new book Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (University Press of Kentucky...

...Anti-Communism, they charge, corrupted our politics, weakened our civil liberties, and led to a militarization of our foreign policy...

...The United States Information Agency had already retreated in bloody disarray after congressmen objected to an exhibition of There is an important story here, though not always the story the author wants to tell us...